Dust
by imtryingtowrite
Summary: Avatar meets The Picture of Dorian Gray. Katara meets a woman who shows her the underside to the Fire Nation and all the vices it has to offer her. It has to be rated highly for content because of this. Trigger warning to anyone who suffers from addiction. This could potentially be seen as a follow on from Gunners Coin, however it's being written to stand alone.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I don't own avatar, but damn I wish I did.**

Katara looked around herself in shock and horror. The outer circle of the Fire Nation was somewhere she hadn't had time to visit yet and she had been looking forward to the picturesque villages with playing children, strong buildings, and velvet clothed fire flake stalls that had been described to her. It was not picturesque. The outer circle was run down to say in the least; the buildings were crumbling, the ground scorched by the sun, the children she had expected were either sheltering where they could or burning their dirt stained skin, and, disappointingly, there were no fire flakes. The outer circle was a slum.

"Miss are you busy?" A hand tugged at her skirt. Katara turned around to face a small boy of no more than five or six years old. "Miss do you have any water?"

She searched her bag and produced a moon peach. "What's your name?" She asked, handing it over to his greedy fingers.

"Fisk"

Katara watched Fisk gorge on the moon peach, his teeth tearing into the flesh of the fruit with a hunger and enthusiasm she had never seen. "How long has the outer circle been like this Fisk?"

"Like what?"

"Like" she paused "like a desert with no houses"

"Always Miss" He replied and skipped off, handing her the pit of the moon peach.

Katara pocketed it and turned around, knowing she had seen enough of the outer circle to last her a life time.

* * *

><p><strong>Just a quick prologue to something I'll hopefully be consistently writing. Unfortunately, it is going to have a lot of content and isn't something that's a good idea to read if you are under 18. Fair trigger warning to anyone who faces addiction that this will be at least considered in the fanfiction, although I haven't really hashed out a plot yet.<strong>

**I'm super excited to start writing again! Hopefully you all like it :)**

**As for seeing this as a follow on from Gunners Coin, if you wish to do so then it would be best to imagine that Katara has either moved on or to read from part way through the novel (when I get there) because she's beginning again as the innocent character. I will be trying to combine a few elements here and there though so look out for them!**


	2. Chapter One

**Disclaimer: If I owned avatar I would be in a fabulous outfit right now, not my pjs.**

The royal palace loomed over her head, an elegant but cruel reminder to Katara of the money wasted by the rich on needless fineries. The guard escorting her grabbed her wrist, pulling her roughly round a turn on the path and snapping her back to reality. This really was a place you could lose yourself in. The duck pond in the distance looked so tranquil Katara would have done anything to sit by it and waste the remaining hours of the day, but that wasn't an option; she had a job to do. They walked inside the palace grounds to the requests area where Katara and the guard waited to be seen, watching the sun descend from it's vibrant pedestal in the sky to its melted home on the horizon.

She finally reached the front of the queue, both her and the guard relieved they could sit down soon.

"Name?"

"Katara of the Water Tribe"

"Request?"

"I've come to speak to the Fire Lord about the conditions of the outer circles and propose some plans of act-"

"No. Soldier remove her from the property."

The guard balked, she clearly didn't see the justice in the officials decision.

"What?! Why?" Katara asked, panicked.

The man behind the desk waved them away uninterested and the guard grabbed her arm.

"Sorry, miss."

"That's okay," Katara sighed "I guess I'll just have to come back tomorrow."

The guard raised a brow, recognising her determination. "I don't know if they'll see you tomorrow either, miss."

"Then I'll come the day after too."

The guard paused.

"What's your name?" She asked, her smooth voice making the question seem almost predatory.

"Katara."

"Nice to meet you Katara," The guard looked about and, seeing it was safe to, stuck out a hand happily "I'm Izina."

Katara shook her hand. "You too."

They walked back to the gates in silence, Katara guessing how long it would take for the Fire Lord to see her and how long after that it would take for her plans to be put in motion. Is it really that difficult to treat your citizens right? The problem is, she mused, that these aristocrats have never been in any circle other than their own. Their pampered lives have made them bad leaders in the end. She smiled at the irony.

"So what's the problem with the outer circle?"

"Huh?" Katara grunted, her inelegance causing a light blush of regret.

"The outer circle. You said something about a plan of action and fixing things? From what I hear it's pretty great over there." Izina smiled at her.

"Yeah. That's what I had heard too. I'd show you but to be honest I'm pretty tired right now." Katara sighed.

"How about tomorrow? If you're going to be here everyday until they let you in you should probably show me what it is you're trying to complain about. You could be here for months!"

"Months?!" Her biggest bet had been two weeks.

"If not years." Izina confirmed.

Pushing the spirit-crushing realisation aside, Katara agreed to meet Izina near the trains the next day, deciding that there was no harm in educating people. Maybe word would get round about it and people would know the truth. That'd make her job a lot easier.


End file.
